The articles and essays in this blog range from the short to the long. Many of the posts are also introductory (i.e., educational) in nature; though, even when introductory, they still include additional commentary. Older material (dating back mainly to 2005) is being added to this blog over time.

Thursday, 3 September 2015

C.I. Lewis on the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme

C.I.
Lewis secured himself from any charge of ‘rationalism’ by
arguing, in John Passmore's words, that

“the
distinction between what is given to the mind and what the mind
contributes has to be discovered in the world – it is not itself
given”.[Passmore, 1957/1966]

Thus
reason isn't its own guardian against error and untruth. It's far
from autonomous in the rationalist sense. However, then Lewis makes a
point that, although not rationalist, is very like Donald Davidson’s
later position. He argues that the world

“we
actually experience is one in which the mind has already been at
work”.

In
Davidson's terms, we don't apply a conceptual scheme to ‘the Given’
– the world is already "structured" though not "organised" [see MichaelLuntley's1999]. Lewis goes on to argue if that weren't so, “it would be
wholly indescribable; nothing less than a pattern or an order can be
named”. Moreover, “one can never say of anything that it is 'the
given'”. Lewis adds:

“To
know at all is to categorise; Russell’s 'knowledge by acquaintance'
is impossible in principle.”

Like
Davidson later, Lewis still accepted the given (without a capital 'G'); though he saw it
differently to the epistemic foundationalists or sense-data
theorists. He argued that

“there
is a given – something which no activity of thought could alter –
is beyond all question”.

He
went on to say that “[n]o philosopher has ever succeeded in doing
without the given”.

Like
Davidson and, indeed, Kant, there is a given of sorts; though
that too is structured (though not organised) by the mind (or, in
Kant’s case, by the Transcendental Ego). The world is given to
us in a structured form – structured by categories and concepts.
However, we don't contingently apply conceptual schemes to this given
in order to organise it – it's already organised.

Lewis
argued that "critical realists" were wrong to conceptually tear
apart the “unspeakable” sensory elements and the “categories
through which it is categorised”. Lewis also accused the critical
realists of asking an absurd question: “how do we know that
experience will fit into our categorical types?” Lewis argued that
this question is

“unanswerable
– if it means, how do we know that what we experience is not quite
different from what we take it to be?”

If
we take the mind naturalistically, and deny any application of
conceptual schemes, then this question makes even less sense because

i) we have no choice
but to see the world as we do see it.

ii) If the mind is
part of nature (not its pure spectator), then there's no prior reason
to believe that there could be such a mismatch between mind and
world.

As
Davidson also argued, Lewis argued that

“experience
must 'really' be the sort of thing which satisfies our categorical
principles, because those principles are the only thing which can
determine what is 'real' and what is not”.

Thus
we can't escape from the conceptual scheme we're born with. Indeed if
we're all born into this same conceptual scheme, then “the very
idea of a conceptual scheme” [Davidson] is rendered suspect because
of the implication that there's more than one conceptual scheme.

Lewis
becomes Kantian in tone when he refers to the fact that our
“categorical principles” determine the/our “conditions of
experience” (to use Kant’s own way of putting it). Categorical
principles

“describe
the way in which we interpret our experience; nothing could happen,
therefore, could overthrow them”.

Lewis
acknowledges that they

“may
alter if our interests, and with them our methods of interpretation,
are modified; but they can never be refuted”.

Thus,
after all, they aren't a priori in quite the same way as Kant
thought. Though, like Carnap’s “linguistic systems”, they can't
be deemed true or false: “they can never be refuted”. They must
therefore be chosen on pragmatic grounds; even though we're still
given a conceptual and categorial framework from which we can
modify them. It's still the case that there's no experience devoid of
“categorical principles” – no pure given. However,
unlike Kant’s a priori categories and concepts, we can
indeed modify or change our categories or categorial frameworks;
though we'd still be unable to experience an uncategorised given.

This
is quite an interesting middle way between Lewis's critical
realists (metaphysical realists?), epistemic foundationalists,
Kantian transcendental idealism and the conceptual relativists who
came on the scene after Lewis. Indeed, because of Davidson’s debt
to Kant (as well as his denial of conceptual schemes), this very
synthesis was something Davidson tried to bring about later.